Experimental Estimate of Beam Loading and Minimum rf Voltage for Acceleration of High Intensity Beam in the Fermilab Booster

The difference between the rf voltage seen by the beam and the accelerating voltage required to match the rate of change of the Booster magnetic field is used to estimate the energy loss per beam turn. Because the rf voltage (RFSUM) and the synchronous phase can be experimentally measured, they can be used to calculate the effective accelerating voltage. Also an RFSUM reduction technique has been applied to measure experimentally the RFSUM limit at which the beam loss starts. With information on beam energy loss, the running conditions, especially for the high intensity beam, can be optimized in order to achieve a higher intensity beam from the Fermilab Booster.